Level2wo

Project Management Issues

Projects are rarely easy. Well, let me rephrase that. Projects often have difficulties. Hmm. Let me use Robert Burns’ or John Stenbeck’s more popularly known phrase: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Or, maybe…well, you get my point. Projects of any kind face difficulties, from scope creep to communication issues, over-promising and under-delivering, and quality and cost issues. There’s more, but I just don’t have the time to get into them all.

So what do you do? It’s simple, and yet it’s maybe not that simple. Nothing beats planning. Nothing except for luck, great clients, great teammates, and, if you’re lucky, a combination of the two. But that’s not something you should count on. Issues arising, clients changing their minds, less than efficient team members. That’s what you should expect; if you get anything better than that, then you, my friend, have a heck of a team that you need to hold onto.

 In interactive projects, much can and does go wrong. And by wrong I don’t mean failures of massive proportion, but rather websites becoming a lot larger and more complex than agreed to in the SOW (statement of work), quality being produced by outside vendors not being up to what your (or worse, the client’s) expectations are, technology failures (server crashes, missed deadlines, delayed client approvals, PHs (person hours) over budget), etc.

What do you do? Truthfully? Roll with the punches. Learn from your mistakes, and learn from the mistakes of others, so that you don’t repeat the mistakes. Learn how your organization works, and learn how your client’s organization works. Once you understand the big picture, managing the minutae gets better. But learn. Be patient. Understand that everyone has an agenda, that everyone is probably as just as busy as you are and lacks as many resources as you do, and that they’re making the best of it. Have a smile on your face, because the storm will pass. It always does. And keep your head in the game, showing confidence and glee the entire time. You get your teammates to stay in the game, you’ll get that much more done that much quicker. And focus. You’ll be fine…just know it, and all will work out.

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